Our Live Oak Wildlife Sanctuary & Tortoise Preserve

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WE NEED YOUR HELP

Recently the 110 acre site to be known as our Live Oak Wildlife Sanctuary & Tortoise Preserve in Suwannee County, FL is being purchased by a donor group on January 15th, 2025.  The Live Oak Gopher Tortoise Sanctuary, LLC will be buying the land with their own money. Once they pay for it as well as pay to take it through the process of becoming an established gopher tortoise recipient site by the FWC and it is ready for The Tortoise Conservancy's stewardship they have committed to donating the entire 110 acres to us.  Over the next few years, the goal is for it to become home to over 500 gopher tortoises along with the 350 other wildlife species the site will support because of this Keystone Species being there.  The group will first be donating the Conservation Easement to us in early 2025, which will give us access to the land as well as permanently protect the land from any future development. After they have transformed the entire 110 acres of land into a permanent gopher tortoise sanctuary and all tortoises to be received on the site are safely on site, the group will also donate the land itself to us. This form of land acquisition for the Conservancy is known as Method Three of the three ways we look to acquire land to reach our goal of 10,000+ acres by 2035. 

 

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To be absolutely clear, The Tortoise Conservancy will not be spending any money on this site until it has been donated to us and we own it completely.

However, beginning fourth quarter 2024 we will continue to raise funds needed for when we do own the land. We will need to secure the perimeter with fencing, create the Nature Trail, install benches and signs along the trail, as well as install multiple cameras near active gopher tortoise burrows for our members to be able to access from our website whenever they want. These funds will be set aside until we own the land, but will be designated for these improvements to the Sanctuary once we fully own the site.

The Live Oak Gopher Tortoise Sanctuary & Nature Trail will be maintained in perpetuity by a trust account set up for that purpose by the Conservancy so the land will remain in this natural state for centuries to come. 

 

WHY AND HOW WE DO WHAT WE DO AT TTC: